Together We Fall
by daisherz365
Summary: It's in death that he finds some peace with his thoughts on the one who is always there to save him. Even if she isn't there, she's always there. Spoilers for His Last Vow


TOGETHER WE FALL

**Synopsis: It's in death that he finds some peace with his thoughts on the one who is always there to save him. Even if she isn't there, she's always there. Spoilers for His Last Vow**

_Hello again. Here comes the last of my within s3 fics. Well, I wouldn't say it's the last one but it's the last that will directly coincide with things that happened within the episode directly. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading the other two guys, and if you haven't already feel free to take a gander at both Always & Never, and Into The Night (I'll Be With You). It would mean a lot to me. :) _

_This one continues the pattern of being written in Sherlock's POV. Funny that I'm liking it a bit more now that I'm on the third fic straight to just do it that way. Can't wait to hear what you think! _

_much love,_

_day_

* * *

_Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be  
There's a shadow hanging over me.  
Oh, yesterday came suddenly_

- Yesterday; The Beatles

* * *

It's ironic to him that he is here again. Dying. Except this wasn't like the last time. He had a plan set in motion and it had worked. He is alone at first. His mind seeming to jump in after he processes that he's been shot by Mary. Mary Watson, wait...yes, she's standing there in front of him with a face lacking any sort of remorse. She barely blinks at him, she had said something but something clicks inside his head and all he hears are sirens going off in his head.

Everything stops. Then she's circling around him. Not Mary. No, he's stopped thinking about her now. It's Molly. Molly Hooper. His friend, his pathologist. The one who always there time and time again. She's smiling at him voicing her opinion about the scene like she was expected for them to be here again. Like she knew he would need her. She isn't real. She wasn't there when he proposed to Janine, nor was he there when he found Mary. She's at Bart's or perhaps at home with her favorite feline and sipping her red wine with gusto.

But, he watches her. This version of her. As if it were real, as if she was there helping him as she always has done even though no one knew that. No one truly knew how far she has gone for him. A part of him knows that the only reason why he can't bare to tell them that is because he finds it easier for it to stay just between the both of them. It has nothing to do with his reservations for keeping his life private. Every thing he does goes public, but when it comes to Molly Hooper there is so much that has been kept quiet. Little things. These are the things he keeps with him, sometimes he forgets that it's there. Now, however it's important.

He goes back to paying attention to what she says to him. "It isn't like how it in the movies. It's not like a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards." The scene changes and he opens his eyes to the cool surface of being on a slab. Her slab -NO! He isn't able to focus on anything but her face when she draws the sheet back after a few seconds. He can hear her talking before that though, continuing to assess the damages done to his sternum. "The impact isn't spread over a wide area, it's tightly focused so there is little or no energy transfer."

Then he can see it. Her eyes, it's a bit blurry but he can see how focused she is. On him, on this moment. She is what he always sees in her even when she fumbles she is poised and intellectual. She is what he requires right now. He hadn't known at it at first but it makes absolute sense. Her warm brown eyes. The warmth doesn't automatically slip over him, the haziness is winning over. He feels cold momentarily. Just a moment, aware that she is there standing over him.

She soon becomes a bit clear. Her face being the only thing that he is conscious of. Her mouth moving in sentences as she continues on - she's staring to instruct him on what to do. She is here to take him through the end. His end, his demise. Last time it was him giving her instructions on what he needed her for and how it was supposed to go. It seems things have changed. Everything has changed though, hasn't it? She had been engaged for quite some time and now she wasn't. She had become more outspoken towards him and he felt that was good, brilliant even. It made him desire to stay close to her more often and talk to her without necessarily needing anything (a body part, data, etc) though at times he did. He didn't need to toy with her anymore and it had been decided that he never had to. She would have helped him any time as long as he asked. It was only because she tried to get out of it that he ever felt he needed to go to those heinous lengths in order to gain her help.

It had put a bit of a strain on what he had begun to form with her back then. Two years ago. When his life was falling apart and he didn't know if he had a place in the world anymore. He had needed her to guide him, to show him what was and what would be left for him granted if he was to return. He knew that he had to, that he wanted to return to London to all of the people he deemed important but there was always a slight circle of uncertainty of when that would be available to happen. He was losing his grip again, wasn't he?

He had done bad things in order to get to this point and truth be told he was shaken. Truly and wholly shaken by what he was faced with. A lying spouse - a friend he wanted to keep originally, a bullet in his chest and now he was dying and there wasn't anyone here to pick up the pieces.

Not true! A loud voice shouted in his head as he registered the sentence that Molly had uttered, "You're most certainly going to die. So we need to focus." He felt the strong force of someone's hand on his face. She had slapped him. This version of her had slapped him. There was something about it that felt so familiar. It had happened already didn't it? He had stored it away somehow and now she was doing it again. "We need to focus." That's what she said before she hit him. It was different that before though in a way it was exactly the same. He had needed her to slap him. He might not have realized it at first but now he understood. That's why he stored it (a part of him had to have known he would need it).

He gasped in a large breath at the impact of her slap. He was reverted back into the room with Mary and CAM but only for a second. Seconds afterwards he felt another hit to his face. She had hit him three times before, hadn't she? She was angry but now this was something else. She was trying to get him to come to grips with what was happening. "I said focus!" This one was somehow much stronger and he whipped back around to the side, the force of it making him stumble before he shook his head and looked up.

She was still there. Good.

They were back at the slab. Except he wasn't exactly all there. His body was on the slab and they were standing across from each other. He swatted away of the memories of this same exact thing being a common occurrence between the two of them whenever he needed to see a body. Stop it. He didn't need that right now. More instructions. More guidance from the woman who mattered the most. He slipped back into listening to what she said. "It is all well and good having a mind palace but you only have three seconds of consciousness left to use it. So come on, what's going to kill you?"

Kill him. Yes, this is the second time she's mentioned that he was dying. Twice the need to remind him that this was serious and he needed to think on his feet. The answer came to him rather quickly. He was more focused now, her need for an answer forcing him into spewing out what he had already known. What she had known. "Blood loss."

"Exactly." She isn't smiling but there is a small spark of reassurance. He would have to thank her later for that. It really was doing loads for his sanity at present. It's not going to last long. Panic is probably going to set in soon. He knows the drill. "So, it's all about one thing now forwards or backwards? We need to decide which way you're going to fall."

His mind is still quick. Three seconds of quick thinking.

They are back in the room and they are not alone. Mary, CAM and...Anderson?

"One hole or two?" Why is he there? He doesn't remember putting him there. What?

"Sorry?" He mutters, focusing back on Molly as she comes to stand in front of him. "Is the bullet still inside you or is it an exit wound? It'll depend on the gun." It is a misstep, it doesn't matter about gun. His brother is there to remind him of that. Being irritatingly helpful. He feels like a young boy again, he tries not to think of it much. There are bad memories lying there but there is also some good. Some pain as well, and that is what he will latch onto when the time comes. It becomes child's play when coming to answering Molly's question. He hadn't noticed the mirror before. Or he had but he had forgotten. Yes, probably the latter.

Mycroft is helpful. Very much so it almost feels like the old days when he would play pirates with him. He was always the baddie though. He needed someone to be his adversary, older brothers were perfect for that bit.

The bullet is still inside him, though. He knows this now. What's next?

Back to Anderson and Molly, they are quite the team he's realizing. Both work with corpses, helpful in their own ways. "So we need to take him down, backwards." Anderson starts. Molly isn't too far behind in agreeing. This is the way to go. "I agree, Sherlock you need to fall on your back." This is the first time she's called out his name throughout this whole ordeal. He breathes in the sweet sound of it momentarily before she is moving behind him, Anderson moves in front of him. She is behind him ready to catch him. Ready to cushion his fall in a sense.

"Right now the bullet is the cork in a bottle."

"The bullet itself is blocking most of the blood flow." She slips behind him then.

Anderson is centered in front of him telling him more of his dying situation. "Any pressure on the entrance wound could dislodge it."

He hears her from behind. She is waiting, she needs him to act fast and he can't disappoint her. Not anymore. "On your back. Gravity's working for us. Fall, now." He doesn't have to see her face to see the pure look of concentration. He needs to do it or he will die. Death never sounded so pleasant with her in his head. Except he knows he can't just give up, not when she's standing there with him giving him the way around it. The loophole. She was his for awhile and even if this is a figment of his imagination he knows that he would do this again just to have her behind him, guiding him through it. He falls then. He is not alone. They fall together, it should be in their manifest of the relationship they have. It's always a fall. Molly's there. Catching him. Yes.

When he falls back he feels it. The steady pressure inside his head. He feels like he's going made. What is happening? Wasn't that supposed to help him? He feels worse.

"You're going into shock. It's the next thing that's going to kill you." There she is. He stares at her in bewilderment. Lost, unsure of what he is supposed to do. He needs her to tell him. He doesn't know what to do with shock. He's never been in it. Not in this way. He is bleeding, a gunshot wound in his chest.

_Next thing that's going to kill you..._

Right, still dying. In shock.

"What do I do?" His face is pleading, questioning her. It is important that she tells him. He doesn't want this to be it. He needs more to go on, more to keep him here vying for little moments where he lock them away in this large morgue where he keeps her, always.

Mycroft is there being sarcastic again, but helpful. Calmness, he needs it more than anything right now. Where to look? He has few memories of being calm. Most of them center around a dose of drugs, but no that isn't real calmness. It is temporary. He travels back, rushing through door when he realizes it. Oh, so obvious.

He wants to cry out when he sees the form of Redbeard. He looks just the same as the last time he same him - (large, brown and red fur, long legs as he looks up at him), just before he lost him. He calls out to him, come to me Redbeard. I need you. Please, one last time.

Then he's there enveloping Sherlock in sloppy kisses and affection and he loves it. "They're putting me down too. It's no fun, is it?" It hurts him to have to endure this again knowing when he wakes up, if he wakes up he won't be there. He is his joy, his one pleasant memory from childhood. He kept him sane and happy for so long. But he wasn't going to be there anymore. He held onto him for as long as he could before he fell back again. He was trembling, shaking. It hurt, there was so much agony and he willed it to stop.

Molly's voice was shaky as she tried to break through the barrier willing him to stay calm and find the way out. "Without the shock, you're going to feel the pain. There's a hole ripped through you, massive internal bleeding. You have to control the pain."

He is screaming in agony when he hears the one word he has tried to hold onto more than anything in the past. No matter how shitty things god. _Control_.

"Control. Control. Control." He chants it like a mantra as he slips into another room within his head. He knows on the outside he looks like a shell but he needs to grasp at the life straps. It's a padded room he's in now and he straightens up just barely after shaking off the trembling of the pain for just a moment and he is faced with his worse adversary. He hates him. He hates how easy it was for him to just take the pain without feeling. No emotions. Nothing. Jim Moriarty is chaos and is only just that he is the last to see him as he is dying. He mocks him as he tries to grasp at finding the control he craves. He continues to do so as he slips in out of the padded room with him and visions of John and people he doesn't know crowding all around him. They are trying to help him now.

All he feels is pain and even that becomes a distant memory to him as he slowly falls into the darkness. This is what it feels like to die, he supposes. It is bleak and silent and dark. There is no comfort in it. There is no resolution, it is just empty.

He tries not to wrap himself in it too much even though he is there in it fully.

He hears a voice mentioning John and danger in the same sentence. It is him. The one who oozes chaos towards him and all around him even in death. He pushes himself up from within his mind fighting for a way out. He has to get out of her. He has to make sure John is okay. He needs to make sure they are all okay. John is the priority at this moment. When he comes to he knows he has made it out. He feels like hell though. It is expected. He utters one word though they are asking him several questions. "Mary."

He sees all the people who he is used to seeing. They are there to make sure is okay. He is alive and that counts but all of it isn't done and he knows the second he gets out of here that everything will go back to the way it was. Except, Molly wasn't one of them. He wonders if she was even told that he nearly died. That he almost became a body on her slab - for the second time. He has to file it away for other times when he has a moment to inquire about it. There is Janine, and John, no Mary at first but he knows that she had come just to see if he had made it. Greg is also supposedly one of the few who had also seen him but the doesn't remember that. Mrs. Hudson would probably come later but he hadn't seen her. He imagines she would be in a fit of tears for almost losing him again. He is sorry for any tears he has made her shed while he was out of sorts.

He deals with all of it though. Then some more resulting him nearly going to jail for a very long time. He feels grateful for his brother's influence for the first time in a long time though the consequences aren't particularly something he wanted nor is it something that his brother wants but it is the only solution left beyond being locked up. No one wants to see him there - that isn't true. There are several people behind bars that would love to have a piece of him, for then he would most certainly face death at the hands of more people than he could count. He had been at this at a long time.

As he says goodbye to his best friend and his missus he knows that this is it. It is a six month expedition but he doesn't know where he will go after that. He isn't supposed to make it back. Mycroft had mentioned that when he initially told him about it during Christmas.

_Your loss would break my heart_.

He looks out the window of the plane as it takes off taking him away from his friends, his family, his London. He will miss it. He longs for so many things in that moment. He closes his eyes for a moment, the past couple years flitting behind his eyes and smiles ruefully about it. He will truly miss it all. He turns to the seat beside him and spots the small box that sits there. He had made a request that he be able to take it with him for he never opened.

If he was to die this time, he decided that he would take it with him to his grave.

He begins to reach out for it when a man comes over to him with a phone extended to him. His own mobile is down with his brother, he couldn't take it with him. "Oh for god's sake. It's only been four minutes." He tells him and he smirks before turning into a full smile when he hears his brother tell him that "England needs you."

His glee doesn't last too long upon getting off the plane and finding out the true nature of the problem. He doesn't understand it. Nor does he fully understand his mind's automatically need to get to Bart's. He can't yet, there is so much to be done. He needs to find a way there after they get things started. The transmission of the video needs to be taken down, they need to find out if they can find what device it was broadcast from (he doubts it'll give them anything), and most of all he needs to track that maniac down. If it is indeed him.

A part of him hopes it is. So he could formally kick that grin off his face and then pull a trigger to his temple himself. He will not have him harming the one's he love again. It took him two years to get back her only to screw it up and now he had to fix it again. His brother was most certainly correct in his assumption. They did need him. He was the only one who knew how Moriarty's brain worked. They were alike, compatible even.

It wasn't entirely true though. There was another person who knew bits and pieces of the game he played and he had to go talk to her.

It took three days for him to find a way to the morgue. Surprising her once again as she had been working on an analysis. "You don't have to be afraid." These are the first words he says to her when he steps into the room quietly. She jumps, sighing as she runs a hand down her face and turns slightly towards him making sure he's there.

"What...Sherlock you're..." She says as he moves to stand closer to her at the table where she's sitting. "Back, yes."

"Not dead." She says instead.

Oh.

"John had told me you were in a hospital but that was weeks ago so I hadn't heard anything else. I didn't dare contact Mycroft. He probably wouldn't have told me anyways. Wow, so what have you been up to?"

"Almost dying for the third time." He smirked her.

"Third?" She echoed.

"I nearly was locked up, Molly. Killed a man." She blinked at him, her hand shaking a little where it was on the knob of the microscope. "Mycroft has more power than we thought. I was going somewhere instead of prison when..."

"I know." She cuts him off before he can say anything else. She won't look at him though. He isn't sure if it's because he confessed to killing a man or the fact that he almost went to prison or if it's something else entirely. He is trying not to read too much into how she is acting but the shaking is truly telling. She is afraid.

"You know?"

"Moriarty. Jim. Not dead." She said placing her head into her hands.

Sherlock took in a deep breath, he shut his eyes for a moment knowing that she would be affected more by this than anyone. She had known him, dated him actually - broke it off after the third date - thank god for that. "You don't have to worry anymore, Molly." He told her placing a hand on her shoulder. His eyes opened again, focusing on her again. Making sure that she was listening to him.

"I'm not..." She started but he turned her towards him and gives her a look. He knows. He can read her like a book. "I'll make sure you're okay. Truly okay, not the things you tell your best friend in order to keep her off your back because you choose to continue stay by my side. I truly am grateful for your decision to not turn your back on me. I'm going to tell you something that I've already stated before in short. You were there for me even when you didn't know it. When I was dying I..." He pauses unsure if this is what he really wants to do. Tell her what was happening in his head before he nearly died. He should want to. Perhaps it'll give her more perspective of her value towards him.

He thinks for a moment and she waits for him to continue. "You were there." It's all he says. "You weren't actually there in the flesh but you were there. I could explain it to you..."

"Your mind palace." She says, smiling just a little at him.

Right. She understand him. She would catch onto his logic. He doesn't believe that the only reason why she's smiling is because of that. There is something is. "What?" He asks, he had wanted to say something else.

"Nothing." She wipes her face. Oh, she had started to tear up. Why, he hadn't done anything bad?

"Well, I'll protect you. That's really all I wanted to say." He finished up clearing his throat. Not enjoying how uncomfortable it made him to see her with any form of tears even if they were happy ones. They were, he realized when she beamed at him.

"Sherlock..."

"I promise." He cuts her off again.

"Okay." She whispers, nodding at him. "Well, since you're here would you like to help me out a bit?"

He blinks a moment. He slides a stool over and sits. "Since I'm here and all." He gives her a smile which she returns in kind.

He hopes he can have more of this time with her. He'll make sure that he can as long as he can because he appreciates these moments more than anything. It brings him back to the heart of all things. The morgue is his home, and a little quote reminds him that his heart lies in it. He agrees, with much gusto. She sits next to him, and is there for him. Always.


End file.
